“There are some genuine farmers who still do not want to give their land,” Bhattacharjee told members of Assocham and local chambers. “The government has a moral responsibility for them. The government is ready with a package for them and we are ready to discuss that package.”

Sources said the “package” would include enhanced financial compensation for Singur farmers. It would benefit all landlosers — those who have accepted their compensation cheques and those who haven’t — and is said to cost an extra Rs 30-40 crore. The CM said the state had deposited the unclaimed compensation amount — estimated at about Rs 28 crore — with the Calcutta High Court.

Giving back the land, Bhattacharjee said, wasn’t an option. “It’s neither realistic nor legally valid. I can’t afford to roll back. It is such an important project for us. I don’t know why they are repeating 400, 400? Why not 300, why not 500? Why they are opposing it? Other states are sending feelers to the Tatas.”

When some urged him to talk directly to the farmers, Bhattacharjee said this would be difficult because there is no one group. Many of them are absentee landlords, some have plots with faulty title deeds and then there are those who oppose the acquisition on political grounds.

With 85% of the project complete and the first Nano small-car scheduled to roll out in October, Mamata has launched a sit-in outside the factory in support of farmers who she claims do not want to part with their 400 acres of the 997 acquired in 1997 for the project.

The Chief Minister’s sense of urgency was apparent. “I am trying to convince them. We are not egoistic. We should reach a consensus otherwise how can we solve it? I am optimistic that I will be able to convince them.” Bhattacharjee was replying to a question posed by Sajjan Jindal, Assocham president whose Rs 35,000-crore integrated steel plant project in the state did not face any land acquisition problems.

The Chief Minister sounded “helpless” at times — a fact some of the industrialists noted—but in the end, clearly underlined that he was committed to the reforms he had pushed for. When Biswadip Gupta, the head of Jindal’s project, wanted to know Bhattacharjee’s take on “government-sponsored bandhs” and “Opposition-sponsored bandhs,” the Chief Minister said: “I do not support any bandh. I agree it is not helping anyone...But unfortunately as I belong to one party and they call a strike, I keep mum.”

Then he added, to loud applause: “But I have finally decided that next time I will open my mouth.”

When an official of the small-scale industry association narrated how SSIs suffer at the hands of “fundamentalist trade unionism”, Bhattacharjee repeated what he has often said earlier: “I agree that trade unions should behave. I am trying to change their mindset. I keep saying how our contribution to the Oxford dictionary has been the word gherao. But I can assure you that gherao will never return to our state.”

When K L Chugh, former ITC chairman, asked why Bhattacharjee as the “reformist chief minister” does not get his spirit to prevail upon other leaders of his party, the Chief Minister replied: “My colleagues in Delhi are also debating, discussing. Our old dogma will not work. Perhaps, our colleagues in Delhi are also changing. It will take some time but I can assure you that my colleagues are reshaping and reformulating, too.”